Posts Tagged «Google Play»

It is exceedingly hard to find an angle that presents The Interview in a positive light — and yet, of course, Sony Pictures’ marketing department has managed to do just that. Yesterday, four days after the film’s release on YouTube, Google Play Movies, and Xbox Video, The Interview became Sony’s ‘#1 online film of all time,’ grossing $15 million from sales and rentals. In other news, however, it would appear, rather ironically, that Sony used a popular K-pop song without permission of artist.

Remember that neat little cardboard contraption that turns your Android smartphone into a pair of do-it-yourself virtual reality goggles? Well, it seems that Google isn’t content to let that cheeky little idea die. Instead, the folks at Mountain View are doubling down on this adorable low-cost VR solution, and dedicating an entire section of the Play Store to Google Cardboard.

Beneath the synthetic bows of Nokia’s Mobile World Congress tree, listening to (admittedly rather nice) recorded birdsong, I played with the new Nokia X. Unfortunately, the soothing surroundings were not enough to lull me into enough of a soporific stupor that I’d actually enjoy using Nokia’s first Android-powered phone — but still, points to Nokia…

Google has signaled its interest in using Bitcoin, and it’s asking users for feedback on how to proceed. Almost any move by Mountain View could send the value of the cyrptocurrency even higher than it already is.

The CyanogenMod group, famous for its feature-rich Android builds that have been stripped of cruft and bloatware, has secured $23 million of Series B funding from venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Chinese internet giant Tencent. The money will be spent on recruiting new talent (up to 60 new staff members over the next year) that will help cement Cyanogen Inc as a serious, commercial player in the Android market. In related news, the Oppo N1 — the first CyanogenMod smartphone that’s been certified by Google — will be available from December 24.

Google’s foray into multiplayer gaming is not just a welcome set of features for gamers. It also marks a new way for Google to push out key platform elements to all Android users without the bottleneck of OEMs and carriers.

Today was filled to the brim with interesting announcements at Google I/O. While Mountain View was focused heavily on new tools and services for developers, a few snazzy consumer-facing features made their way into the keynote as well. No, there isn’t any new fancy hardware, but Google is clearly taking usability and consumer-friendly interfaces very seriously going forward.

Late yesterday, Facebook unveiled an Android home screen replacement called Home. In the same fell swoop, Facebook also released its first smartphone — the HTC First — and declared war on both Google and Windows Phone. For Facebook, where mobile has always been its weakest link, yesterday was a very big day indeed.

Use of this site is governed by our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Copyright 1996-2015 Ziff Davis, LLC.PCMag Digital Group All Rights Reserved. ExtremeTech is a registered trademark of Ziff Davis, LLC. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Ziff Davis, LLC. is prohibited.